The loss of two CDs containing the personal details of all families in the UK with a child under 16 inspires me with confidence of the Government’s ability to ensure the security of the data to be held in the National Identity Register.
Year: 2007
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Who you gonna call?
Gameplay footage from the new Ghostbusters game which features the voices of the original cast and has been scripted by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis.
Looks damn awesome! I had the original game for my Spectrum 48k back in the day so this makes me very nostalgic and happy.
In an effort to secure my replacement tax disc so that I don’t have to suffer another break in to my car I’ve used the Secur-i-disc as recommended by both the Police and the DVLA. They describe how it works as follows.
If a thief breaks into a vehicle and steals the tax disc, the unique Secur-i-Disc encapsulation will prevent any alteration for use on another vehicle. Any attempt to alter the details on the tax disc will result in its destruction, thereby preventing the thief from “selling it on”.
Hopefully the result will be that the thief sees the warning and will not even try to break in now.
Damnatus an ambitious fan-film produced by German fans of the Warhammer 40K game, made by the company Games Workshop, may never be seen by an audience according to BBC News due to copyright issues.
The German producers of Damnatus had tried to make the film as professional looking as possible and spent over 10 000 Euros and months of filming on the project. Unfortunately Games Workshop say that due to German copyright law there is a danger of them losing control over their Intellectual Property should they let the fan film be distributed.
Andy Jones, legal and licensing head for Games Workshop, said this law confers rights on the creators of works that cannot be given away.
This means that the creators of Damnatus cannot assign their rights to Games Workshop even if they wanted to.
But by sanctioning the release of the film without this “assignment” Games Workshop would essentially be giving up the title to the Warhammer 40,000 intellectual property.
In a lengthy response explaining the ban on Damnatus Mr Jones wrote: “To lose control of Warhammer or Warhammer 40,000 is simply unthinkable.
“So we must be vigilant, and perhaps sometimes seemingly heartless in our decisions to safeguard the IP for the future success of the business and the hobby.”
I have to say that I’m dubious about the truth of Games Workshop’s position here. I’m no expert on German copyright law but I can’t believe there is no possible work around to this obstacle if Games Workshop truly wished to help their German fans release the movie.
If German law is like any other countries’ copyright law then there must be provision within that law to licence the copyrighted works of others to create new works. How else could the movie Perfume: The Story of a Murderer have been produced unless their licensed the right from the book’s author Patrick Süskind?
A contract could surely be drawn up to licence the copyright of Games Workshop on a limited basis for a nominal sum of 1 Euro to the German film producers that would allow the movie to be released on a non-commercial basis.
Mr Jones said despite Games Workshop’s “admiration” for Damnatus it could not change its policy and allow the film to be shown.
He said Games Workshop was not acting “malevolently” but that this was a case where an agreement has “failed to be reached”.
Said Mr Jones: “This is perhaps to be regretted, nonetheless in the final analysis we simply have no choice but to say ‘no’.”
I have a feeling that the BBC article does not tell the full story, either there is some genuine confusion here or Games Workshop is saying one thing in public and trying to muddy the waters with talk of copyright issues but is in reality opposed to the release of this movie.
Edit: A commenter at TechDirt with some familiarity of German law suggests that the company find a new copyright lawyer as like I wrote above it’s perfectly possible for them to grant a limited licence to use their copyrighted works without losing control over their Intellectual Property.
Also another commenter suggests that there might be some confusion and it is actually a Trademark issue instead, I could believe that this might be the case but surely there is a workable solution if this is the case too.
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Chat Noir – Addictive Flash game.
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free rice
How’s your vocabulary?
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I don’t believe it!
Richard Wilson just came to see The Counterfeiters. I managed to restrain myself from contriving a situation at which I could say “I don’t believe it!” in front of him.
I wouldn’t want a repeat of the following.
The Guardian reports that the UK is backing a plan to split Taliban from within.
The British government has thrown its backing behind an ambitious Afghan strategy to split the Taliban by securing the defection of senior members of the militant group and large numbers of their followers.
The strategy, spearheaded by the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, reflects a significant shift in British policy, and is showing initial signs of success.
This would seem to me to be a classic case of divide and conquer, a sensible course of action I think as the ultimate goal is to bring peace to Afghanistan not to capture or kill every single member of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the country. It can only be a good thing if more moderate members of the Taliban who are not really adherants to the ideology but are members out of tribal loyalty can be persuaded to lay down arms. politics, terrorism
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Hitler Banned From iSketch!
I’ve not played iSketch in over a year but I still found this most hilarious.
BBC News: Burning chilli sparks terror fear
A pot of burning chilli at the Thai Cottage restaurant on Monday sparked fears of a biological terror attack.
Roads were closed and homes evacuated by police whilst firefighters wearing protective breathing apparatus broke down the door to the restaurant where they discovered the source was merely a 9lb pot of chillies.